Excerpt from Novel:
Mathis, shaking like a landed fish, stood beside a crooked tree. Danny found him there.
"You hurt?" Danny, all concern; eyes searching for a missing puzzle piece.
Mathis worked his mouth like a dying carp; eyes rolling like bee-bees in a box of crackerjack toys.
"Let's get you to the hospital before---"
"...grabbed me from behind. I was dangling like a puppet...." the strangled voice came tumbling out like losing dice-- mid-sentence.
"What? Who?" Danny froze; squinting at this face that held horrors; his friend, his "brother" and, today something else as well.
"He had me and I couldn't move. In that warehouse back there...that storage building..."
"Who..WHO did?"
"No-eyes. The guy who always wears shades. I'd see him now and again and he'd just walk along with me telling me about his wife..."
" I mean, how did he hurt you? What happened?"
The Federal prison loomed large in the background. Mathis felt small and defenseless for the first time. His mind wouldn't focus on what had happened. Detention buildings crowded the two Jehovah's Witnesses like bullies taunting children.
The Mess Hall teemed with hungry men like swarming ants. Danny and Mathis stood some distance away. The noon sun held no warmth at all and winter lurked in the corners of their eyes. A small eddy of countervailing winds stirred up a dust devil of leaves and dirt like a demonic crooked finger tracing a jagged rut nearby.
Earlier that day the dark rectangle of a man fell in beside him as Mathis made his way out of building four. The large inmate Mathis referred to as "no-eyes." He always wore cool shades like a jazz musician. He was a hulking figure who spent most of his downtime in the weight shack pumping iron. No-eyes passed him here and there day by day. Something about the guy seemed urgent. He had mentioned over and over that he had a wife and that she was JW.
None of what he ever said had context. This bulk of a man always seemed to want to talk. Too much time away from women turned men gradually into either weak things or mean. Apparently no-eyes needed to cross that line.
"I gots some light bulbs I gots to replace in the warehouse, but; I gots some questions about what the Bible sez. You JW's know this stuff. You explain it to me." That was all he said and wheeled about heading off for a squat, grey building secluded from the main compound.
Everybody had a job assignment in prison. Mathis had construction. It was actually destruction, but; they called construction anyway. He'd make little rocks out of big ones for concrete mix.
No-eyes was an electrician of some sort. Today, he was changing light bulbs in the storage warehouse. It was all mundane. Humdrum. No alarm bells.
Mathis shrugged and marched behind no-eyes with time to spare. An hour lay fallow before him like an empty field before a plow. It was so natural a thing to do. More obligation than choice. Jehovah's Witnesses, even in prison, had to preach when the opportunity arose. No-eyes knew this too. There were only wolves and sheep in this world. Today, no-eyes was going to appear as a sheep. The real sheep followed him.
Up the stairs into a breeze way; each figure plodded forward with footfalls echoing statically against the concrete tiles. The day inched into greyness toward darkness; shadows gulped and swallowed the building's hulking mass.
The dark rectangle with his shades and thin moustache unlocked a sturdy door and stepped aside inviting Mathis to precede him. In they went.
The vastness of the room sprawled outward into outlines unseen and disturbingly monstrous now.
One moment the world hangs balanced in space; the next, everything falls away without warning!
It all happened with the swiftness of a serpent's strike! The first minute, Mathis blinked to adjust to shadows and black nothing; the next he spied the door as it was being locked.
Locked?
Why?
Some trap was sprung on someone too stupid to beware!
This consummate betrayal, so nefarious and sure, went down with swift certainty before the brain could scarce imagine!
He had been seized from behind! The audacious, strong-limbed inmate had shrewdly pounced and lunged with such uncanny grace! Unwitting Mathis dangled in the air, aloft in scrawny impotency.
A monstrous stabbing lump commenced.
No-eyes was dry humping him!
Mathis squirmed and arched his back to fend away this ruinous and amorous battery.
It took forever for the mind to allow for what was about to go down.
The bestial voice was pestilent upon his neck. Low and ruminative pleasure grunts, as from a bulldog, peppered the room. The horror began to swell into an explosion in Mathis' brain!
"Give me what I want, man; or I'll knock you out and take it." Not even a threat! A certainty.
Time and space into a melting nothing fell. His mind became a diving bird toward a murky depth. Something inside screamed "NO!" But only soundless, empty air rushed out. Mouth dry. Heart rattling in a cage in his chest.
The assailant's voice collapsed and exploded provocative and diabolic commands.
Within his dark cage, a louder voice prevailed; stentorian, inexorable and wild. "Jehovah!"
Jehovah! (A cry from the soul!) Where are your angels and the power of your mighty being?
Was he not a servant of God's will?
Nothing is impossible to overcome!
Why me?
Heart pounding adrenaline; a sordid intoxicant. Jumbled thoughts...senses high alert.....the coiled, thrusting as he dodged and twisted from this vile dance.
God had made a covenant, a promise and would not now betray! "You are never tempted beyond what you can endure..." Jehovah would make the way out.
The battering ram behind him and the odious lurching harvest frenzied to the point of no return.
Mathis' voice found purchase...calm...assured...controlled.....like a sure-footed mountain goat on a steep ledge.
"I can't do this. It's against my religion. God won't allow me. I can't." Bland, calm statements; as though read from the label of a can.
The muscled arms had looped under Mathis' pits and steel-fingered hands had interlaced behind his head when the inmate had attacked. The lifting power of this pestilent monster was extreme!
A gnawing, pensive certainty prevailed. The baffling impropriety was clear. Only God could end this now. Rapacity and muscle contravened.
Unconnected thoughts popped in and out of his head.
Cain slew Abel when the world began.
Mathis' mind grappled.
Abraham raised the dagger to plunge into his only son's chest!
Gods and devils, angels, demons, myths and childhood horrors appeared and disappeared in an instant of time.
The sound of someone laughing from afar....or..was it a crying scream...?
Was that his own voice??
******** ********* *********
"What are you trying to tell me?" Lt. Bennet's voice.
Bennet's office was pristine, surfaces shining like the polished mirror glaze on Bennet's shoes.
The Lieutenant had very little time to spare at the moment. His motto was always, "Get to the point or get the hell out!"
Impatient and insistent he listened anyway.
Inmate Tollie Padgett's folder lay open on the desk before him.
Padgett was another True Believer, JW, wasting his intelligence and squandering his life. But, he was no-nonsense; a straight shooter as religious nuts go.
Padgett had written a "cop-out" form asking Bennet to listen to, as he termed it, "A significant and dangerous problem".
Inmate Request forms were made accessible throughout the compound to record the goings-on of inmate unrest. Prison is bureaucracy, after all, especially a Federal prison. Bennet appraised requests; all of them. He was the final arbiter; the court of final inquiry and the warden's prime minister. Captain Ayala demanded it.
Padgett sat down in a chair the color despair.
"One of the brothers was confronted---attacked by another inmate..."
Bennett suddenly showed interest in this. He cocked his ear.
"Which inmates are we talking about here?" Bennet knew full well no inmate, even a JW, would give up names. It violated the unwritten code of silence; the Omerta which sealed lips and kept lives safe. Bennet liked to see how each man was made inside; how he negotiated, persuaded, lied or begged. It was an x-ray for his character.
"Inmate Mathis Dante was the victim and I don't actually know the name of his attacker, but; I can tell you what building and which room he is in."
Bennett leaned forward, all ears. A thought crossed his mind.
" Exactly what went down and why isn't your man, this "brother" in here telling me himself? If he is the injured party?"
Padgett pursed his lips and glanced thoughtfully to the side.
"He's...he's, um...I guess you'd say he's not talking about this. At least, not in any detail. He doesn't exactly know what to do about it. The man pretended to be interested in hearing about what we believe--you know--what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. He used that to lure brother Dante into one of those storage warehouses behind the Mess Hall. He grabbed him from behind and threatened him."
"Threatened what? How? What did he do besides grab and threaten?"
Bennett sensed there was more to this than he was hearing. This sort of incident was more uncommon than people on the outside would ever believe.Inmates can find anything they want inside the fence. It isn't necessary to use force. Something was awry.
Prisoners quickly learned how to barter and negotiate. The price, if right, brought everything but freedom.
"My guess--and that's all it is--is that this other inmate wanted to force sex on brother Dante. This happened yesterday around this time."
Bennett laughed sardonically and shifted back in his chair. He turned toward the window and looked out across the compound. It was noon, or, a little past. Inmates were scurrying around like toy soldiers on patrol. Bennett put his arms behind his head & clasped his hands for support in a thoughtful, musing repose.
"You guess!? You either know something or you don't. Why are you wasting my time?"
Padgett could sense he was about to be tossed out. Time to get right to the point.
"I know this brother, I know his temperament and character. Something terrible went down with him. He isn't talking because he doesn't want to deal with what happened...in any dramatic way. My intuition is that he is ashamed and full of...rage. But, there is nothing he can do...under the circumstances."
Bennett listened dispassionately. These JW's were boys among men. Sheep among wolves. What did they expect?
"Well now, when he is ready to tell me what did or didn't occur I'll be all ears."
Bennett threw a meaningful glance Padgett's way. It was a dismissal and Padgett knew it.Rising anger now took hold as Padgett walked toward the office exit. He pivoted and faced Bennett in an almost menacing fusillade.
"Sir, if the Brothers are being molested it is your responsibility to investigate and throw this piece of shit in the hole!"Bennett actually flinched. His cheeks went aflame. Then, he gained icy control and made not a move or a sound. He refused to be baited; not now and not ever. That was his own tactic and he wouldn't rise to such bait.
"Really? What does Jehovah do all day, then? Aren't you His Witnessess?"
Padgett stared briefly and shook his head forlorn. He exited.
Lt.Bennett knew what he was doing. There was only one way to deal with these men. You could never baby them; you had to force them to grow up. It was time for inmate Dante to grow up. And this fellow Padgett? He had guts. But, guts will only get you so far. You have to live in the real world, too.